Anno 117: Tips and Tricks for new players

Anno 117 – Pax Romana is a huge game that dives deep into simulating how a Roman colony works. Its systems can initially seem overwhelming and difficult to understand, especially for players unfamiliar with the Anno series or real-time strategy games. In this text, you'll find a few Tips and Tricks that will make your first hours with the game easier.

• Start with the campaign mode
• Pay attention to the top of the screen
• Regularly check the production chart
• Connect all buildings with roads
• Pay attention to the area effects of buildings
• Build as many houses as possible
• Remember about guard buildings
• Choose the right gods for the island
• Always do research

Start with the campaign mode

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Anno 117 doesn't have a full-fledged tutorial. The closest mode to it is the story campaign, which gradually presents you with increasingly difficult challenges. Act One of the campaign is pretty straightforward. The mission goals aren't too tough, there's no military threat, and you've got plenty of cash. When you move on to Act Two, you'll head to a new area, giving you a fresh start to build your colony with all the knowledge and experience you've gained.

Pay attention to the top of the screen

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At the top of the screen, you will find the most useful information regarding your colony. There, you will see your current financial balance, profits or losses, the progress of current research, the available workforce, and city attributes such as health, happiness, and fire safety. A quick glance at the top of the screen will tell you what you should focus on at any given moment. Also, every now and then, little tabs pop up in the top left corner of the screen. Clicking on them gives you a quick tutorial on any new features. Keep an eye out for them, as a missed tutorial cannot be displayed again without loading a previous save.

Regularly check the production chart

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Clicking the info bar at the top of the screen will bring up a detailed menu showing a chart of all the resources your colony is producing. The arrow next to a resource will inform you about the current state of production. A sideways arrow without a background means you are exactly meeting demand, an upward arrow on a green background means you are producing a surplus of that good, and a downward arrow on a red background means you are producing too little of the good for all residents. Keep an eye on the production chart every now and then. You can sort it by surplus size, which makes it easy to see what resources you can sell and what you need to stock up on.

Connect all buildings with roads

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Roads are important for keeping your colony running smoothly. Buildings cannot work if they aren't connected by a road to a trading post or a villa. Building roads costs some money (and wood if you are building a road over a river). It doesn't matter which side you connect the building with a road from, as long as the road touches it. Be careful when putting up buildings that need trees around, like lumberjack huts—building roads can wipe out nearby trees. Make sure that there are always a few more trees around these buildings than necessary, so that road construction doesn't reduce the buildings' productivity.

Pay attention to the area effects of buildings

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Many buildings emit specific auras around them – they provide unique effects to all nearby buildings within their range. These effects can be both good and bad. For example, a bakery can boost the income of nearby buildings, but it also ups the fire risk. Some buildings, like coal factories, only have negative effects. Try to build houses near buildings with positive effects to influence as many of them as possible, and keep negative buildings away from residential areas to minimize their harmful impact. Moreover, remember that positive auras cannot be duplicated. For example, if you build a market and a tavern next to each other, the surrounding buildings will benefit from the positive effects of both. However, if you build two markets next to each other, they will only benefit from the positive effect of one market.

Build as many houses as possible

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Houses are your main way to make money and get workers, so it's in your best interest to build as many as you can. A single production chain can support many households, so don't hesitate to build new residential buildings. Each new house means more money, more workers, and more buildings that can benefit from positive effects. However, be careful when upgrading homes – even though it boosts the workforce tier, a lot of jobs still need lower-tier workers, and the more skilled ones can't fill those roles.

Remember about guard buildings

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Guard buildings don't produce any resources on their own, but they prove invaluable in maintaining order in the city. They give all the nearby buildings a big boost in health, happiness, or fire safety, so you can easily manage those aspects. In the event of a crisis, such as a plague, riots, or fire, you can also send their personnel to calm the situation. That's why, the presence of guard buildings is crucial for the proper functioning of the city.

Choose the right gods for the island

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Once you build a faith-generating building on the island, you can pick a god to be the island's patron. Each god provides different bonuses, which grow stronger the more faith you collect. It's a good idea to match the god to the island's specialty, like worshipping Mars on an island that makes weapons and has an army, or Neptune on a port island. You can change the island's god at any time, but this will completely reset the progress of collecting faith.

Always do research

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Placing a building that generates knowledge on the island will unlock the ability to do research. Through research, you can discover new technologies, upgrades, and gods to worship. The research itself is free – its speed is only influenced by the amount of knowledge you generate. Therefore, it is in your best interest to always be working on a research project. You can start the next research right after finishing the last one, or line them up to be processed automatically one after the other.

• Ubisoft
• economic strategies / tycoon
• Anno (series)